


Under Your Skin

by IzzyFrost



Category: Graceland (TV)
Genre: Blood, Brief Mention of Violence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-15
Updated: 2013-06-15
Packaged: 2017-12-15 01:27:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/843719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IzzyFrost/pseuds/IzzyFrost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a operation goes horribly wrong Mike blames himself and Charlie tries to help him keep it together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Under Your Skin

“It’s not your fault, you know that right?”

Mike jumped, a jolt of terror rending through his body. He was sitting in his (Donny’s?) room with his back to the door and he hadn’t noticed Charlie coming in. “Oh God, I’m a mess.” he thought, shaking his head. If someone could sneak up on him without trying then that did not bode well for his observation skills.

Then again, nothing from tonight boded well for his observation skills. Like too jittery drug dealers, and too fast transactions, and too quic-“Easy boy, it’s just me.” Charlie raised her hands in a “I-mean-you-know-harm” gesture. He must have still looked pretty freaked out because she kept it up while gingerly sitting down on the bed next to him. “Now, I know it’s a dumb-ass question, but how are you?” Her tone, usually so assertive, was gentle.

He laughed like the action brought him pain, and looked straight ahead as he answered, not wanting to see what was in her eyes or for her to catch what was in his (anger, disappointment, regret).

“If you know it’s a, uh, “dumb-ass” question, then why are you asking it?” he said. Mike felt her shift her weight so she could lean in and wrap her arms around him. Still, he tensed up. “Shit, shit, you are a fucking idiot.” he mentally berated himself as she immediately withdrew, “Top of the class my ass.” He wished there was a way to get back into Charlie’s arms that didn’t require him to admit his current weakness. His mind helpfully supplied a few old images he wished he had never thought of because it only served to make him feel worse.

Instead he settled for picking at his nails for probably the twentieth time that night. He couldn’t help it if he still smelled the coppery tang of blood. Rationally he knew it had to have been all scrubbed away hours ago, but being his usual rational self had not succeeded tonight and a part of him was certain some was still there, hidden right under his skin.

“I’m asking it because I’m shit at comforting people, but I’m worried about you so I want you to know that I’m here.” she replied. Mike suddenly felt a burning sensation behind his eyes. Alarmed he fought those emotions down. He was an agent of the FBI, if he couldn’t handle death than he needed to change jobs. Instead he cleared his throat and quickly blinked his eyes a few times.

“Thanks, but, uh, I’m ok, I’m good. These things happen,”  
“Mike.”  
“I knew the risks when I accepted the job, and uh,”  
“Mike.”  
“The important thing is there was no loss of life for innocent civilians or,”  
“Mike!”

He stopped. “Look at me.” she commanded. Slowly he turned and brought his eyes up to meet hers. It was just as he feared: sorrow and pity and pain all jumbled up and directed at him. And what did she see in his eyes? Red-rimmed eyes that gave him away? Maybe a drop of blood even though he had scrubbed himself raw. Or something else he refused to put a name to because that would just be adding to the pile of what he was going to someday betray, was betraying at the moment.

“Let me see your hands.” she said. Absentmindedly he laid his hands in hers. Maybe she would give him a second chance on comforting him; maybe then his brain would just stop for a while.

Her hands were gentle but calloused from a life of working a job that didn’t take place behind a desk. She turned his hands over and then breathed in sharply. “Oh Mike…” Looking down at their hands, at first all he could see was that somehow his hands were still shaking. No matter how hard he tried to patch himself up his body kept betraying him, showing the strain.

Then he noticed the blood. Apparently he had succeeded in finding it under his skin after all. Immediately he tried to pull his hands away, but she would not let him.

“No. You don’t get to do that.” she said.  
“What?” he asked, angry.  
“That thing we do when everything goes to shit and yet we insist on acting like nothing wrong. I’m not going to let you bury this and have it eat away at you!” She lifted his hands. “I mean, look at this Mike! Look at what you’re doing to yourself!”

He hastily stood up and backed away from her. “Look, I said it’s fine! I’ll deal with it! And why are you in here anyway? You wouldn’t do this for any of the others would you? But I guess because I’m “green”, I’m the new guy everyone has to act like I can’t handle anything! Hell! I guess they were right! So what, what do you want!?”

He could feel himself unraveling, and at the back of his mind he was horrified that he was talking to anyone like this, let alone a co-worker. But he couldn’t stop or contain it, any of it. Quantico had taught him many things, but not how to stop yourself from coming apart at the seams. The guidebook never mentioned this.

Charlie stared at him, her look measured. Then coolly she said, “I just wanted to check up on you to see if you needed anything or if you wanted to talk.”

He laughed again, this one harsher and more erratic than the last. “What I need is to not to talk about it, to not think about it, to stop replaying it over and over and over and over again in my head wondering how I got it so fucking wrong!”

Again and again that night he had to explain what happened, why it happened, when it went wrong and why he couldn’t stop it. Over and over, and he knew there were many more days to come where he would have, they would make him, step back to this night, this bloody, fucking night. And he wasn’t sure if he could do it.

Mike hadn’t realized he was crying until Charlie was there in front of him wiping the tears from his face. So quietly that she could barely hear him he said, his voice cracking a bit, “It was a simple buy and bust, how could it have gone wrong?”

He closed his eyes and saw it again. Him telling their contact to relax, it would all be over soon. Just got to make the buy and that was it. He was so nervous, so fucking scared. The dealer pulling up. More of them than expected, but that was fine, nothing he couldn’t handle. Out came the suitcases, one with money, one with cocaine. Everything was rolling along smoothly, until, until it wasn’t and the dealer pulled a gun and shot his C.I. right in the fucking throat and he’s still not sure how exactly he’s alive but he supposes shooting a few guys and having a swat team on your side helps but nothing helped his C.I. though he tried. Tried to keep his blood in but it kept spilling out and flowed into places under his skin he isn’t sure will ever come out.

“Mike, Mike, look at me.” Charlie’s voice, gentle but strong, pulled him back to reality. She was holding his face. She might as well have been holding him up.

“Shit happens. Later there are going to be interviews and inquiries and god damn reconstructions that will analyze what happened into the ground. And whatever it is that they find there are two things that I know. One: you are a good agent who is on the path to becoming a great one. This. Isn’t. Your. Fault. And two: just because we are big bad FBI agents does not mean we can’t hurt when things fall apart. And you’re just going to hurt yourself more by pretending that isn’t true.”

Slowly Mike looked up to meet her eyes and was overwhelmed with (no don’t think it, not that, anything but that), with longing for Charlie, smart, beautiful, wonderful, Charlie. In that moment despite everything he had told himself, to not to get involved, (he was here to spy on one of their own for God’s sake, and she was never going to forgive him for that) he could have kissed her.

But he took a moment too long for when he leaned in she had already turned away. “I’m going to go get something for your poor hands.” she said over her shoulder as she walked rapidly out of the room. Another white-hot fear spilled out of Mike’s chest and swept through his body, that she knew what he had been about to do, and this was her rejection.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Charlie shut Mike’s door and slid down the wall. “Well shit.” she muttered to herself. She knew the dangers and had long ago promised herself to never let herself get involved with one of her co-workers.

What they did, it was too unstable to risk your heart on. In the morning they could be there laughing at you over their cereal, and by that night you were standing over their bloody, broken, body. No, it was far too dangerous to give yourself to someone whose everyday was a battlefield and who might not make it back. She didn’t want to end up like Lauren, unable to let go. Charlie pushed herself up off the floor. “Just don’t get involved.” she thought as she walked down to the bathroom.

“Don’t get involved.

Don’t get involved.

Don’t get involved.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first work I've posted so any and all criticism and thoughts are welcome.


End file.
